Posting Ruby

So, I broke down and did some research on how to post code to blogger so that it doesn't look hideous. It wasn't nearly as simple as I wanted it to be (most notably, it was a serious pain to use cocoa to use the pasteboard for converting text)... so I hacked together a little rails project that handles things for me using web forms. It would be a long post to explain all the details, but I'll cover the basics.

First, sudo gem install syntax. Then create a new rails project and get it up and running. When you've got that, generate a controller called "Convert". The code for the controller should look like this:

class ConvertController < ApplicationController
  def ruby
    render :action => :ruby
  end
  def to_html
    require 'syntax/convertors/html'
    convertor = Syntax::Convertors::HTML.for_syntax params[:type]
    @code = convertor.convert(params[:text]).gsub(/<span class="punct">([^<]*)<([^<]*)</, "<span class=\"punct\">\\1&lt\\2<")
    render :action => :to_html
  end
end

And then you'll need a view for 'ruby.html.erb'.:

<h1>Convert What?</h1>
<p>
 <% form_tag('/convert/to_html') do %>
 <table><tr><td><%= text_area_tag 'text', '', {:cols => 80, :rows => 30} %></td>
   <td><%= radio_button_tag 'type', 'ruby', true%>Ruby<br/>
    <%= radio_button_tag 'type', 'xml'%>HTML/XML<br/>
    <%= submit_tag 'convert to HTML' ><td>tr><table>
 <% end %>
</p>

...And a basic response form in 'to_html.html.erb':

<h1>The raw HTML:</h1>
<pre><%= text_area_tag('whatever', @code, {:cols => 80, :rows => 30}) %></pre>
<h1>The results:</h1>
<%= @code.gsub(/&amp;/, '&') %>

...You'll also want to set up the CSS for your site, using the CSS from the site where I stole this idea from. Polishing things is an exercise left to the reader... but that should get you started.

Assumptions

So, I was writing a few RSpec tests today, and required Hpricot to look at a few views. This was the code I wrote:

     links.each do |link|
        this_taxa_name = nil # scope
        img = link.at("img")
        if  img.nil?
          this_taxa_name = link.inner_text # This was the text link
        else
          has_image = true # This is the image.
          this_taxa_name = img['alt']
        end
        taxa_name ||= this_taxa_name
        assert_equal taxa_name, this_taxa_name, 'The names for the featured species were inconsistent (image alt/text)'
        taxa_link ||= link['href']
        assert_equal taxa_link, link['href'], 'The links for the featured species were inconsistent (image/text)'
      end
      assert has_image, 'There was no image for the featured species'

...This was all because I was trying NOT to assume that the image always precedes the text for the image. The test ended up being a bit longer than one page, so I asked a co-worker to look at it. His simple suggestion was "it's okay to assume the image comes before the text". By making that assumption, this block of code above becomes:

      assert !(links.nil? or links.length == 0), 'The featured species had no links'
      assert_not_nil links[0].at('img'), 'There was no image for the featured species'
      assert_equal links[0]['href'], links[1]['href'], 'The links for the featured species were inconsistent (image/text)'
      assert_equal links[0].at('img')['alt'], links[1].inner_text, 'The names for the featured species were inconsistent (image 

It's very easy to see why assumptions are the #1 problem that developers have. They make life much, MUCH easier.

I suppose that's true of life as well.